


everything goes

by mindshelter



Series: you wait for fate to turn the light on [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hallucinations, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Whump, author apparently likes writing gap-fillers, i guess lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 23:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20750663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindshelter/pseuds/mindshelter
Summary: Tulips, indigenous to Turkey and Persia, are a globally popular plant. Simple, colourful. A classic symbol of renewal, the harbinger of spring, the genial doorkeeper to new beginnings. Petals that fold up like fire, like life.Among the expanse of pinks, yellows and oranges, Peter keels against the dirt, core on fire, ribs reassembling along the outline of his lungs. He’s out of place in this sea of flowers, anything but perfect, coated in his own blood and sweat. Nothing like what – who – he’s supposed to live up to.or;stranded in the netherlands, peter waits for happy’s arrival.





	everything goes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Excalibur](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19840717) by [ciaconnaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciaconnaa/pseuds/ciaconnaa). 

> loosely inspired by one of ciaconnaa's works - the premise of excalibur is wildly good and i've incorporated the idea of peter seeing/hearing things that aren't actually real here, as a combo of fatigue and bereavement. 
> 
> if you haven't read excalibur, go do it now because it's phenomenal writing by a phenomenal writer at a quality i can only hope to have one day

Halfway through, fingers hovering over the keypad, Peter realizes he’s dialing the wrong person. 

Tony won’t pick up.

His thumb digs into the backspace key, frustration and distress mounting by the second. He flips through his mental catalogues and types in a new string of numbers.

Judging by the bustle of activity around him, townspeople going about their usual affairs, it’s midday. The time difference means it’ll be the early morning overseas in the States.

The ringback tone sounds four times, and Happy answers.

_

His bones are scattered inside him like busted ceramic. Anything more than a normal breath overinflates his chest, makes the fragments poke against his lungs. It hurts; his right side especially, and it’s only the lack of blood gurgling up his throat that tells him nothing’s been punctured.

Small mercies.

So Peter presses on, limping, begrudgingly carrying the pain that zings up his legs and crests halfway up his torso before it breaks and spills up to his shoulders. He shuffles towards an unknown destination, mustering what strength he has left to keep his body steady and hold back the compulsion thrash to relieve the ache that, right now, is soul-deep. 

Hunger beats at his stomach, angry at the lack of food that’s gone into knitting him back up. When his vision blurs, Peter’s not sure whether it’s the issue of blood sugar or tears.

Happy had told him to go somewhere clear and free of people, where the jet can land without any bystanders gawking. Peter clings onto the instructions, repeats it through his lips over and over again so that it’s louder than the static of _what do I do what do I do I’m scared I’m freaking out – help, help, help_.

_

Grief makes people do terrible, extraordinary things.

It swallowed Peter back up and spat him out, a mangled parody of what he had been. He’d come back out wrong; less than before.

He hates it, this lingering companion of his, this sinister little apparition. He hates how at his worst moments it comes back to run his life, waiting to strike the moment he falters.

_Tony Stark makes critical misjudgment from beyond the grave_, Peter thinks, sifting through the fucking Dutch countryside. _Gives idiot boy very powerful tech that he loses within two days. Even dead, is there _nothing_ this man cannot do? _

Now _that’d_ be an absolute hit of a tabloid article. 

He’s just a small speck of dirt. He just a kid and maybe it took him a while to realize it, but he does now. He does. Maybe he wants the chance to ask his crush out and go to Ned’s house to play video games and teach May how to properly bake a cake. Maybe he wants to let that kind of life coexist with Spider-man – they’re not mutually exclusive, he thinks. Having both – was it too much to ask? 

Peter can’t catch his breath in more ways than one.

He keeps walking down the beaten beige footpath to God knows where when someone begins to match his pace, steps in tandem with his. 

Peter turns, and Tony is there, hands on his hips, AC/DC t-shirt and sweatpants on. The clothes are tattered, thinned out from years of wearing and washing, but intact - under them, however, Tony's skin is charcoal, covered in asteroid impacts. Parts of his arm glow like cinders, effusive lava oozing out of his wounds. It flows into the wrinkles of his face, more pronounced than Peter recalls ever seeing them. 

He laughs when Peter gasps and flinches back, eyes wide. 

Scrambling, he turns frantically to spot any hidden drones, pick up on the muted whir of gears that are so well-damped that even his enhanced senses struggle to pick it up. 

The back of his skull doesn't tingle. 

"Mr. Stark?" 

Tony shakes his head, gaze mirthful. He kicks his bare feet against some pebbles. "I'm dead, Pete." 

Right. 

Fine. It's not like this trip can't get any fucking weirder. 

He tilts his chin forward, pointing a finger to a nearby field in the distance. 

"Cute place - I'd've loved to take you here, one day," he says. "Why don't you head over there?"

Peter spots a field of flowers across the flat expanse of ground, a slight left from the direction he'd been heading in.

When he turns back to Tony, he's gone. 

_

A mile or so out of town sits a stout windmill that watches over lines and lines of tulips, a carefully arranged palette of yellows and oranges and pale pastel purples. Still teetering on his feet, Peter picks up the pace and stumbles forward. 

With a too-hasty step, his left leg inches a space further than what his tired body can support.

Peter crashes into a bed of rosy pink.

Face first, into the dirt.

His muscles and bones practically sing in protest, but Peter is too busy spitting out soil from his mouth to so much as whimper.

He’s a failure. A piss-poor hero knockoff.

Hands clenching some of the dirt, knuckles shaking, he pushes himself back up into a seated position, arms limp against his sides and calves sandwiched between the ground and his thighs.

The wind weaves through the flowers that surround him, making the thin stems sway back and forth. Stiffness isn’t a measure of strength – the ability to withstand force after force until the material inevitably shatters. Things last if they’re flexible, if they can bend for the world around them and come back no different than before.

“I’m trying,” Peter mumbles. “I’m really, really trying.”

His old apartment in Queens is gone. The small grocery that was below it, which kept fruits in stands just outside the entrance, only ever had stale gum in stock and blasted cold air from its AC unit on the hottest summer days. The pawn shop in North Manhattan. His SHIELD-issued suit.

EDITH.

Tony. He lost them both, too.

Hasty, Peter swipes some of the grime off his hands and unzips the pocket of his pants, pawing for something. His fingers find the metal case, more dented and beaten than before, but intact.

He opens it.

The necklace is whole; the little dahlia in one piece. Delicately, Peter scoops it up and lets the pendant drop, its fall interrupted the chain still wound around his hand.

The necklace is okay. Peter’s lower lip wobbles.

Clutching it closer to his chest, Peter shifts to bring his knees towards him, curling into a ball. His thumb rubs the smooth, cool glass, feeling the texture of each black petal, a product of years of craftsmanship.

“I screwed up, MJ,” he croaks. The image of her face jolting with panic as Mysterio wraps a cloud of green gas around her neck and throws her off the ledge flashes through his mind, and he flinches, scrunching his face shut.

Peter covers his ears with his hands but her screams don't get any quieter. 

When he opens his eyes again, he’s not in a tulip field – he’s face-to-face with Tony’s grave, still brimming with red and gold – peonies, carnations, sunflowers. Piles and piles of letters and drawings. Extinguished candles, wax already melted all the way down to the roots and adhered to the grass. Taller ones, flames put out by wind or rain before the wick could make its journey all the way down.

The actual headstone is barely visible under a horde of gifts for a hero that quit too late.

It’s unlike the one Beck had conjured up, bare and dark and lonely, like the man couldn’t have endured replicating how beloved Tony was.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says. “I’m sorry; I’m so sorry, Tony.”

_Sorry doesn’t cut it_.

“I miss you.” His voice cracks. A hand reaches out to brush against smooth marble, the engraved _Anthony Edward Stark_, but all he touches is empty space.

“Come back.”

Nothing emerges from the grave; everything is silent.

The rotten bones of Tony’s radiation-ravaged body never burst out from their casket to grab Peter by the ankles and dig, dig, _dig_ until the pressure of its grip draws blood.

“Come back,” Peter whispers.

Tony – the real Tony – wouldn’t hurt him. He knew some of Peter greatest shortcomings and maybe somewhere beyond he sees this too, this terrible breach of trust, Peter a pathetic, stupid, naïve thing. 

Yet the he knows the older man’s reaction would have never been violence. Tony was stern, took no shit, outwardly unpleasant to many – but –

He was a kind man. 

Tony would have reprimanded him, but then he’d have invited Peter to come help fix the problem. Made it a lesson, a chance to better himself. 

(hypothetically. if tony were here this wouldn’t be happening in the first place.) 

But that’s not the point. Peter had failed and is jeopardizing hundreds of thousands of lives. His own friends are in danger. 

The paper decorating the gravesite flutters – some detach from where they sit and fly off. The bouquet wrappers laid nearby crinkle, the bundles inside withered, petals becoming dry and papery at the edges. 

Peter shakes his head and rubs at his eyes. The heels of his palms come away wet and he has to breathe in hard to stop the flow of fluid threatening to run down his nose.

When he risks a look at his surroundings again, the windmill is back, as is the disgusting filth and soot caking his fingers, MJ’s pendant balanced carefully on one knee. Peter’s back in the Netherlands, a sitting duck. Someone could kick him lightly right now and he’d just topple over.

Twisting open the aluminum case again, Peter gingerly settles the dahlia back in its home and slides it back into his pocket.

He stands, taking a deep breath.

Peter screams.

One, two, three times.

The gasping kind at makes people red in the face, the arteries and veins of the neck working overtime right below skin.

The roaring type of scream; the kind that makes your voice go hoarse in no time, the kind that makes you come away with a scratchy throat and in desperate need for water to soothe. It fills his entire body, lingers on his eardrums. His shoulders shake and his lungs burn, the inhales and exhales of air only giving strength to the flames. 

So long that he’s alive, Peter is on fire. A catastrophe that precedes a wasteland. 

He keeps going until hands clasp roughly over his mouth to prevent any more sound from escaping, and Peter gags on the force of the sob he tries to keep in. It rebounds inside him, gaining even more momentum than before and slips through the cracks.

Finally, all that escapes is a high-pitched whimper.

“All right,” Tony says, remark carried in by the wind in the beginnings of an open-ended question, a whisper that's at once everywhere and nowhere, “what now, Spidey?”

_Pull yourself together_, Peter orders. _Wait for Happy. Wait for Happy. You can’t do anything until then. _

_Wait for Happy. Wait. _

“Wait for Happy,” Peter says. “Stay calm. Fix this. _Fix this_.”

_

“Coward,” the hush of the field whispers. It lilts like the music of a reed, permeating through the sky and overcast clouds. “Look at you, you poor _kid_.”

Peter sits cross-legged, fiddling with the hem of his jersey. He doesn’t flinch at the noise; doesn’t look for where it’s coming from. He lets the sounds of MJ’s screams as she falls to her death from the Eiffel tower, the cry of the InterCity train wash over him like sewage water. 

They're not real. There’s nothing to associate it with – Peter can’t pinpoint any source, so he remains planted in place.

They’re not real.

His head throbs, sharp hits against his skull.

When he touches the petals of a tulip, it’s soft, waxy and delicate in a way a drone can’t replicate. Peter leans in to inspect the anthers and stigma. Machines don’t smell sweet. They smell like rust.

Peter’s inhale is sugary and fragrant. That's two senses. It's real.

He smacks his lips together, tongue heavy and dry and tasting vaguely like iron.

He takes out the little tin with MJ’s gift again, drumming his fingernails against the flimsy cover. 

_

A mixture of fear and hope sprouts inside him when the familiar sound of jet pokes through the chorale of voices circulating around him.

The bubble grows, thins; bursts, and then Peter can hear is the noise of propellers - all he can see is the sleek white aircraft. The world melts away, and so do the whispers that have haunted him for the past few hours. 

_Please be real_, Peter thinks, rising to his feet.

The plane rotates midair, the heavy mass of metal harsh against frail flowers. It settles to the ground with a thud.

Peter limps closer, both eager and afraid, careful not to squish any tulips under his boots.

_

Happy tells Peter about his… hotel room expenses from around _seven_ years ago and honestly, how the ever-loving _hell_ does he remember that?

Peter supposes he asked for it. 

The contents of the three water bottles he finishes in a minute flat go down so quickly that some if it ends up dribbling off his chin. In the corners of his vision, Happy is still staring at him open-mouthed, confused.

Peter devours four protein bars and finally, _finally_, his mind shuts up.

FRIDAY’s scan identifies three broken ribs and multiple lacerations, cuts he likely sustained from his fall off the building during the confrontation in Germany. 

“So,” Happy says – the first word either of them have uttered since re-boarding, “What’s going on?”

Peter takes off the orange jersey and uses it like a napkin to pat around his mouth.

“Everything I love dies,” he says.

“O-kay,” Happy answers, entirely too accepting. Peter supposes that the man has spent quite a grand chunk of his life getting caught in progressively ridiculous and dangerous situations, because the most Peter gets from that is a slight frown. “You wanna elaborate on that while I help you patch up?”

_

Everyone from Tony’s inner circle is nicer than they let on. Pepper is gracious, an absolute force of nature, even if Peter still finds himself a little scared of her. Rhodey is sturdy, allergic to bullshit, but he’s endlessly loyal and caring. 

And Happy? They didn’t get off on the right foot and Peter knew that the older man hadn’t actually liked him at all when they first met. Peter Parker had been a footnote in the errands list Tony assigned him to run: a chore.

Peter had been shameless about it, of course – Tony picked him and that _had_ to mean something, so he texted every day and left voicemails. Happy had never answered, not once.

So Peter still finds it kind of freaky, this New Happy: the one that keeps his voice low as he talks to Peter, the one that tosses a hot towel at him so he can clean the gunk and coagulated blood out of his fingernails.

Peter croaks out FRIDAY’s name and asks if she can connect to the EDITH server and hopefully facilitate some override. FRIDAY says she cannot; for security purposes, Tony had kept them separate entities in case one system became compromised to protect the other.

“EDITH?” Happy asks.

“Even dead, I’m the hero,” Peter says. He explains the glasses that had gone to him, what they were capable of.

Happy clearly had no idea about EDITH until now, but he looks the opposite of surprised. It makes Peter want to cry all over again.

This is the Happy that coaxes him to one of the plush faux-leather seats and applies antiseptic and ointment onto his wounds and stitches him up, no questions asked. There’s not a trace of anger.

Peter loses his patience and shouts at him and Happy just sits there, patient.

It’s stupid and selfish and Peter is so bullheaded to think that even for a second that he’s the only person whose life has been shattered to pieces. But he’s the only one who’s fucking up so astronomically – he doesn’t understand why he feels like he’s the only one thrashing around blind, lonely, lost. 

Ghost of a smile on his lips, Happy gives a barely perceptible shake of the head and tells Peter what he already knows: he’s no Iron Man. He’ll _never_ be Iron Man.

_

And maybe that’s okay.

_

The catch is this:

No one can be Iron Man. The only person that vaguely came close, embodied what Iron Man meant to the world was one Tony Stark. The crushing pressure of it all gave him a bombed mansion, panic attacks, ruined relationships, and, of course, the pièce de résistance: a dead son. A full package deal at the low price of your sanity. 

Being a hero is something you do, not what you are. It’s impossible to live up to because it’s constantly in flux, shifting with the seasons, dying and being reborn. It’s an ideal to emulate. To different people, being a hero means different things. 

Maybe it’s settling down behind a silly kid with a plastic Iron Man mask and a toy repulsor and shooting down Hammer’s robots. Maybe it’s making the sacrifice play, flying yourself and a nuke up, up, _up_ to oblivion.

And maybe it’s walking old ladies down the street and letting her buy you a churro as thanks. Trying to save a weapons dealer from his own faulty tech even after being beaten within an inch of your life, after being crushed under tons and tons of concrete. Giving directions to lost tourists. Wanting to keep people safe.

Maybe it’s all of those things. The definition doesn’t have to be picky.

_

_(the compound was made to house a lot of people. peter has his own temporary quarters here – a room and bed bigger than anything he’s ever had, a messy desk with pencil shavings and flimsy loose-leaf paper. _

_it’s quiet here; sometimes eerily so. _

_peter wonders if mr. stark ever gets lonely in this big, vast space, what with pepper always being gone for business and rhodey always elsewhere, handling problem after problem. he tries not to overthink the relief he sees flash like a lightning strike – brief but so, so bright it imprints into your retinas – across the older man’s face when peter drops by for a visit. _

_he does laps in the gym, levels up in battle simulations, joins mr. stark in the lab where they contemplate the practicality the latest adjustment to the web formula._

_one evening, mr. stark is clearly running on minutes of sleep as he drones on, monotonous to his debugging partner, a trusty rubber duck. _

_tony is in the middle of explaining line 386 387 when peter opens the same code onto a separate holo-screen and points out the bug within ten minutes or so of skimming. tony blinks blearily before he takes a deep breath, stands up, and gives peter a small thank-you before swearing colourfully and slamming his rubber duck against the floor. _

_peter’s not sure what the desired effect of that was, but he laughs because the duck squeaks loudly upon impact with the ground, bounces and hits the ground again with another squeak. _

_“fuck a duck,” tony says. he points at peter. “this is why i hired you.”_

_“where the heck’s my paycheck, then?” peter retorts. _

_tony sways where he stands. _

_“mr. stark, i’m begging you – take a nap.” _

_peter orders thai for dinner while tony power naps on the couch, and they sit at the dining table mixing green curry into hot scoops of rice. peter talks about his weekday patrols and tony tries to listen to every word, even in his post-sleep haze. _

_on monday, peter had gotten a pair of siblings out of the third floor of a burning building. on wednesday, he helped fix a bike and wasn’t thanked with a churro, but with a hot dog. thursday, he stopped six guys attempting to rob a bank with a just a little difficulty._

_(okay, he got a concussion.)_

_peter had been pretty sure at least two of those men were enhanced._

_“what would we do without you,” tony mumbles, and it doesn’t sound sarcastic._

_not at all.)_

_

Peter gets up and gets to work.

**Author's Note:**

> ... yeah idk lol 
> 
> some remarks:  
\- rubber duck debugging is apparently a Thing in software design where ppl recite/explain code to spot any mistakes, line by line. i have no knowledge of coding but i thought it was cute  
\- i hope this was nice. hearing back is appreciated!
> 
> i'm @mindshelter on tumblr!


End file.
